Kingdom Hearts: Reality Just Is
by James CyberLink
Summary: (Post KH3 AU story) A young woman and her two friends attend Kingdom Come, a convention dedicated to all things Kingdom Hearts, and the worlds contained within. Soon, she swiftly finds herself very in over her head when the lines dictating the border between what's real and what's fiction are shattered. How could things like this happen? Well, the answer is in the title...
1. (Prologue) En Route to Kingdom Come

**"****JULES MASTERSON!"**

The girl awoke with a start, a few moments after the music player on her phone had switched to playing "_Bohemian Rhapsody_" by Queen.

_Gah! What the hell?!_ Jules's mind screamed out, in silent thought. _Would a simple poke not have done the job?!_

She snapped her eyes open and stopped the music before she was asked to gaze skyward. She disregarded the lyrics that came before that point, despite their upcoming relevance, and turned her lazy gaze onto whoever had dared to wake her while shuffling slightly in her seat. After all, she never was a cheerful sort, which made sense considering her past.

"What? What is it?" Jules barely managed to mumble out the words, directing them vaguely in the direction of her friend, Emily. She stayed facing forward, as she was the one driving. Namely, through a city of concrete monoliths as far as the eye could see. Jules had always wondered how anybody found their way around without a map, unlike her and her tendency to lose track of wherever she was. Like with her life in general, Jules tended to wander around in an aimless haze unless she actually had directions.

"Jeez, I thought you were supposed to be a light sleeper!" Emily said, in a tone that was betwixt and between peppy and excited, and annoyed and irritated. "Besides, you'd best take some time to wake up, we're nearly at Kingdom Come!" She added, referring to the local convention they were due to attend.

Jules scoffed. Her sleep cycle had never been 100 percent perfect, and it was hardly consistent, either. "We've nearly reached Kingdom Come, have we? Great, the end is nigh!" She snarked. "Soon, we will descend into a realm of bizarre outfits, a mish-mash of warped fictional realities, inescapable smells of both 'darkness' and hair gel, and _lethal_ amounts of amateur gothic 'philosophical' poetry about hearts, light, darkness, and friendship! All taken _seriously!_ Among other things!"

Jules was less than excited, her shoulders moving from tense with irritated fervor to relaxed thanks to a sense of resignation. She went on to throw her arms up in the air in exasperation. "I've no idea where you heard that thing about me being a light sleeper, though... It usually isn't wise to make assumptions over my sleep cycle, you know."

Naomi decided to speak up next. "I know you hold tightly, heck, we all do, Jules. It's just… We get worried about you and your sleeping patterns, you know?" She didn't mention how she was worried Jules was going to flip out, panic, and/or act recklessly, as she did from time to time.

"Yes, yes. I know." _Not that knowing means fully understanding, but I figure I get enough of the gist…_ Jules pondered to herself briefly, over how many situations in her life to which that particular thought could apply.

After this brief discussion, Jules switched her music player to shuffle again, with it landing on "_Suits, Maps, and Guns_" from the John Wick Ch. 2 soundtrack album. This, like many other music tracks, moved her in a way. It reminded her of the time she last turned this song on, where she and her friends were acquiring and securing supplies in their van in preparation for Kingdom Come.

Jules took stock of the supplies once again, thanks to the music more than anything else, except possibly the first-timer jitters. She'd never gone to a convention before and didn't want to be going in blind.

She had some protective gear on underneath her high-collared jacket, just in case anybody got too rowdy on or around her, as well as a replica Struggle Bat in one of the car's compartments in the unlikely event that such an audacious thing would get past security. She'd made an educated estimate that a bow wouldn't get past security, especially with a decent stock of arrows.

Jules mentally kicked herself for forgetting about the obvious security-friendly alternative of a structurally reinforced "FREE HUGS" sign. Still, if the security team were good at what they did, the group had nothing apocalyptically bad to fear, just things that were slightly less bad, like overly excitable people wielding FREE HUGS signs.

The group also had a water bottle, portable power banks for their phones, a bunch of bags just in case, a water bottle per-person (Jules was packing two, much larger as well. She tended to get thirsty.) They had also brought some odd bits of food, cash (not in a duffel bag, despite how cool and intimidating they thought it might be) and some sun-screen.

The only thing Jules was missing was an actual desire to attend their local Kingdom Come, the convention of all things Kingdom Hearts, and the worlds and characters detailed within. This would lead to all sorts of worlds being represented, such as some modern classics, live-action and animated, standing alongside the oldest cartoon characters (excluding the likes of Charlie Sheen, Jeremy Clarkson, etc) in the world.

The whole convention seemed to receive attention in a similar style to Fyre Festival, (which had received promotion through famous online social media celebrities posting orange tiles) but with an added dash of blurring the lines between reality and fiction with a series of absurd marketing stunts, which seemed to show various kinds of Heartless, ripped straight from the games, transplanted into real life locations. Bizarrely, nobody could see any marks of the photos being faked, leading everyone to conclude that there must have been some very impressive photo editing at play, despite nobody being given official credit for creating the highly convincing advertising material.

Jules had briefly wondered upon seeing the images if anybody thought they could possibly be real, which would most likely lead to mass hysteria and pandemonium. Despite this, she never bothered to check the news for if anybody had actually freaked out this way. Regardless of any potential freak-outs or mass panics, the advertising worked, and Kingdom Come was brought to the attention of many throughout the whole entire Kingdom Hearts community.

Considering the scope of the crossover between numerous worlds, many thought the scope of the convention would be way too broad, especially for a first-time convention. However, somehow, the organizers behind this convention had seemingly managed to pull together the resources to pull off the unthinkable and set up such an audacious convention. Usually, such ambitious conventions failed miserably, with key examples being found in the failure of Dashcon and Fyre Festival. Many people, Jules and Naomi included thought it was a scam at first until proof was submitted via various sources, in various forms, that it was all real. The tickets sold out soon after that (but not too soon after, there was quite a large capacity).

And not only that, but similar cons were going down at the same time in other locations across the world, with size and scale set accordingly for each region. It was unheard of, but it was undeniably happening. The scale actually intimidated Jules greatly, but for the sake of not getting her friends worried over her, she took a deep breath in, and out, counting to 4 between each breath.

"_I have not come this far to die now,_" Jules informed herself. "_I have not come this far just to suffer._"

"Jeez, Jules!" Emily chirped. "Drama queen, much? No need to act so down! It's gonna go fine, I promise!

Naomi was next. "It's only a convention, no need to act so dramatically. It'll be fine." She mused on how Jules's flair for the dramatic showed through on occasion. "Heck, even if one bad thing happens, it's not the end of the world."

"Uh... Alright, I'm sorry, Something just doesn't feel entirely right... It's probably nothing." _At least, I hope so..._


	2. Anything But Conventional

The three young ladies eventually pulled into their destined parking space and went through to the security check, prompting Jules to play "_This Corrosion_" by the Sisters of Mercy on her music player to calm her nerves. It seemed to Jules like an appropriate song to play, for when you make an entrance, and Jules both thought and felt that she could do with the confidence boost. The angelic choir rang out as the vehicle pulled into their parking space, filling Jules with numerous feelings, such as finality, agency, dread, and determination.

Jules decided she was bringing the weapon, her trusty Replica Struggle Bat, concealed on her person. This was, of course, assuming it would get through security. She quickly grabbed the weapon from its compartment within the vehicle and disembarked from said vehicle. Her friends either didn't notice or didn't dare try to convince her otherwise. She headed up to the security check-in, keeping her Struggle Bat concealed. If somebody found out what it was, she was done for. When it was commissioned, she had it styled to look just like the fictional bats from Twilight Town, even though the hardened thing was durable enough to be usable as an actual weapon. Considering the city she lived in, she appreciated having it a great deal.

As soon as she had approached the booth, the angelic choir was snapped away, replaced with a driving beat as the song suddenly shifted gears. Jules simply allowed her confidence to build from both the situation at hand and the sounds from her device as she approached the security check-in.

When she strolled confidently towards the booth, the serene security guards calmly asked her to stop and then did a brief inspection. She showed her papers and all of her equipment, but something went wrong. She made a mistake, her hand slipped, her dexterity, sleight of hand, and luck had all failed her in a critical moment. The weapon slipped out of its concealed holster and was clearly visible to the guards.

_Oh, **hell. **This is it. I'm doomed. I really don't want to fight my way in, erm… Okay, so do I make a break for it, or… Wait, what are they..._

Some of the security personnel chuckled, some smirked, others rolled their eyes, but nobody made a move to detain Jules in any way.

"Well, your papers and credentials check out."

"You may proceed. _Take care_, now."

"Go on through, Miss Masterson. Have a _good time_."

"Yeah, haha! _Enjoy_ yourself!"

Jules was more than confused. _Did they just not notice it?! Well, if they didn't notice it…_ Jules proceeded, followed by her friends. Jules briefly wondered if the guards found her cute, sexy, or something along those lines. According to people she'd met, including the two friends with her now, she apparently had a strong resemblance to Zoey from Left 4 Dead. She also, perhaps more appropriately, seemed to resemble an older and at least somewhat taller version of Xion, from Kingdom Hearts itself.

Naomi and Emily noted that the security guards at conventions were usually very weirded out, which was very understandable considering what they would have to put up with, but these people were different. They were calm. Very calm. The eye-obscuring sunglasses they were all wearing didn't help matters. Emily was about to talk to them about this and ask if anything was amiss, but Naomi tapped into Emily's normally eager nature for herself and walked a somewhat discombobulated Emily into Kingdom Come proper.

In due time, they arrived at the massive venue for their local convention. Jules didn't recall the official numbers, but she suspected their local Kingdom Come was the biggest of them all (outside of Japan, probably).

Emily soon noticed and pointed out another odd feature of the convention, gesturing towards the many cameras connected to live-streams, some clocks showing the time in different time-zones, and monitors showing live-streams from other local conventions going on at the same time, with people attempting to cross language barriers, with mixed success. These odd setups reminded the three of the He Will Not Divide Us debacle. A large number of people were arguing with some apparently English-speaking fans from Japan over whether Sora was the de facto best character in the entire series or an irritating, insufferable airhead. The latter side of the debate was backed up by people angry at Roxas's tragic fate. Others had formed impromptu international coalitions devoted to figuring out the plot of the entire franchise and where it was going to go.

Naomi spoke up. "So, what do you two make of these features?"

"I dunno what to make of them, but they sure seem cool!"

"Okay, Emily. Jules?"

Jules had done some research previously. "I think it's all a bit gimmicky, really. They said that they wanted to bring the world closer together, which kinda works, I guess? This is Kingdom Hearts and all, but it feels like I can't grasp the reason as to why these things are here…"

The apparent reason for these odd additional features, according to the promotional material, was to unite the world into one convention, split into multiple venues. Jules herself didn't take it seriously, but eagerly awaited controversial attempts at sabotage from maniacs. Apparently, there were also supposed to be some other procedures to make the conventions feel more united in a similar vein, but Jules thought of such things as nothing more than gimmicks and marketing fluff.

Meanwhile, Kingdom Come itself stretched out before Jules, Emily, and Naomi. They gazed upon it in various forms of disbelief, negative, positive, and neutral.

_Jeez, the cosplayers…_ Jules thought to herself, noting the absurdly spiky hairstyles present around her. _It's gonna be like walking around barely scraping under and around a canopy of thorn-covered bushes…_

Naomi was the first to speak. "Gosh, those statues really are something, huh? They spared no expense on the decor!" She made a wide sweeping gesture with her arms outstretched.

"I'll say!" Emily couldn't help but agree, barely speaking through her giddy excitement.

"Alright, I'll give you that…" The locale actually looked suspiciously like it could have been a building in an original world made for Kingdom Hearts. Thinking about the methods used to create this effect made Jules and Emily just a little bit uncomfortable.

* * *

The trio walked calmly and semi-cautiously through the convention floor, arms relaxed and by their sides, taking note of the numerous statues, and evading spiky-haired cosplayers wherever they went, as Jules focused on the sounds coming from her music player to ignore the increasingly annoying commotion from the crowds, while pondering how to keep her hands away from any infectious persons she may brush past. After a moment's contemplation, They eyed up all the theming around them. Emily soon spoke up. "Wouldn't you two just love to visit these worlds?"

_What the what?! Okay, did she really just say that?_ Jules was startled, yet quick to respond, fumbling to turn her music down slightly to hear her friend better. "Why do people always assume that's a good idea?! With Kingdom Hearts, in particular, you'll get yourself killed!"

"But Jules, you'd get to visit so many fantastic worlds! Traverse, Twilight, Hollow Bastion, Departure… In reality, they'd probably look so ungodly pretty! The neon lights on the districts of Traverse Town, the amber skies and views from that clock tower, and not to mention, all the cute and hunky boys to hang out with!"

_Jesus tap-dancing Christ, Emily..._ "Even so, with all the Heartless around, you'll get yourself killed!" Jules's eyebrows locked in place, high up on her forehead, thanks to how exasperated she was. "Or you'll fall into a coma when something goes wrong in the dream-world! Yeah, even your dreams are far from safe!"

Jules continued after a deep breath. "And even then, the individual worlds could pose their own problems! Pirates, for example! Getting sucked into computer mainframes! And then there are the villains of each individual world! Do you really want to get eaten alive by Scar!? Or skewered by Captain Hook!? Or hacked apart by countless other villains that could be out there?! Heck, that's assuming what we've seen in the games is all there is in that universe, and I doubt that's the case!"

Emily had already seen Jules's point a while ago and was able to shut Jules up with a single gesture, just as Jules was about to go into what you might have to say goodbye to, such as your favourite music, movies, culture, internet, etc. Naomi, on the other hand, just giggled a little giggle at this semi-heated debate.

"You've gotta admit, some people might just be better off in other worlds, eh? I mean, you're a real tough girl, Jules! That, and you've always been nice at heart! If Sora or some other Keybearer desperately needed your help, would you _really_ say no?"

"...Damn. You may have a point, there." Jules did often find herself wishing that the protagonists made their way out of their ordeals without being too much worse for wear, no matter how confusing or annoying their demeanour may be. She did get quite emotionally invested in things such as this.

"I get you don't want to be in danger, but with all that protective gear you often wear, plus your skills, and your wits, I think you'd do a pretty good job! Well, as long as you kept your head cool and didn't bite off more than you can chew, or act too recklessly, eh?"

Emily spoke up at this. "Yeah, as long as! That might be the hardest thing of all!"

"Oh, hardy har har!" Jules quipped. She quickly suppressed any more thoughts of being a hero in order to avoid any further embarrassment at all costs.

The three friends kept walking, trying to ignore the numerous arguments and squabbles within the crowd around them entirely as if channelling forth the abilities of tabletop game fanatics deep in focus. Eventually, Jules decided to speak up about this. "Are conventions usually this hectic? Christ, are there any people having a fight around here, too?" Jules couldn't actually see any brawls, as even if there were, the crowd was too dense and thick.

"I dunno… Stuff like that would have notified security, there are cameras all over the place!" Emily noted that things were a little off-kilter, too. "Do you suppose the other conventions have this problem? Are they laughing _at us?!_"

Naomi, however, was less than concerned, letting out a hearty laugh herself. "I'm not worried! There have been _way_ worse conventions than this if you ask me!"

It was impossible to pick out anything specific from the crowds of people, as they all just dissolved into a blur as the three wandered through, Jules largely losing herself (intentionally) in her music, and Naomi contentedly watching Emily take in the sights and sounds. Emily herself seemed to be enjoying herself, but couldn't help noticing some things the other two didn't seem to pick up on.

* * *

After walking for a while, and passing by people playing some of the Kingdom Hearts games at a booth somewhere (Which came across as awfully redundant) They stopped walking for a while and sat down for a bit, across from some statues of the main characters of the games. Emily looked up at the statue of Sora, then turned to Jules.

"Would you and him get along well? I mean, you come off like you're opposites, but then again…" She paused in order to think. "...Perhaps you're more alike than it seems?" Jules shuffled and lent over slightly in order to respond, slightly lowering the volume of her music as it shifted into playing "_Shiny Happy People_" by R.E.M.

"I don't know. He always seemed like too much of a saint. That guy would make friends with absolutely anything with a pulse. Plus, he somehow stays upbeat despite all of the metaphorical filth he's had to crawl through. Isn't that scary?" Jules queried. _His attitude sure does gives me a vague, faintly gripping sense of existential dread..._

"Maybe to you."

"Yeah, I was always the weirdo, huh?" Jules had often been picked on by bullies and often beaten quite badly, hence why she toughened herself up and wore protective body armour both over and under her clothes so often.

Naomi wasn't about to let Jules start feeling miserable yet again, though. "Maybe you're actually the normal one, Jules?" She had said something like this to Jules before, when she, in a rare instance for her, decided to bare her heart to someone else.

"Well, how can anyone tell? Even if I was the normal one, and everyone else was crazy, would that be better or worse? I honestly don't know…!"

"...Well, do you think it's normal, for example…" Emily looked at the statues of the characters again. "To get emotionally invested in fictional things? And even then, to what extent?"

"People keep telling me it's very normal, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people do it. They even say it's healthy to some degree, but overdoing it is neither here nor there..."

"Actually, forget whether it's normal or not. Does it make your life better or worse? What about your enjoyment of said fictional material? Does knowing that it's fictional affect emotional attachment for you, in any way?"

Jules was more than a little confused but tried to keep up, independently of how (un)successful she'd be in the conversation. "Well, surely a normal person would say that life is too short to fret over something fictional to the extent that… people… say I do…"

Naomi finally got tired of this. "What the heck is normal in this day and age?" she asked her two friends, turning her head and leaning back on the seat.

"...Yeah, good point, Naomi." Jules couldn't help but agree. "This world might as well be a dreadful melting pot of madness by this point." She thought back to anything political on any of her news feeds and sighed. Eventually, the group moved on, dragging themselves up from their seats and shuffling along.

* * *

The convention wasn't entirely Kingdom Hearts, though. There were a few pieces from worlds that could be visited in future instalments, as well as from worlds already visited. Notably, there were some slides set up to resemble the inside of tree trunks, based on the world of Deep Jungle. Jules wondered as to why they decided on this, also noting the unsettling lack of safety features or supervision. As Emily headed to the bathroom, Naomi took Jules around an exhibition of different art pieces.

There were quite a few pieces of fan-made artwork on display depicting other fictional worlds, sometimes with Keyblade-wielding fellows clad in typical Kingdom Hearts attire. Naomi noticed some things from The Black Cauldron amongst the line-up, as well as a picture of Sora getting drunk at a bar with Captain Jack Sparrow, his other friends watching in various forms of despair and amusement. Jules paid particular attention to the more obscure ones, simply surprised to see such characters as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the Lonesome Ghosts, and Madame Leota, and she found particular amusement in some images set in an area reminiscent of Deep Jungle.

In some of them, Roxas was shown wearing quite a terrified expression as he was made to swing from some kind of vine, as Ventus found himself climbing up a high cliff, the metaphorical camera looking down on him from above, and the picture overall reminding Jules of some more "adventurous" activities she'd engaged in on a trip to a team-building centre, such as climbing, zip-lining, archery, swordplay, and similar things. Jules had thrown herself into these activities in an actually somewhat successful attempt to reach some level of catharsis after her numerous brushes with various misfortunes had stirred some largely negative feelings within her. Life was cruel with a background like hers. The bullies at her school had painted such a target on her back she'd needed to have the replica struggle bat made for her, in addition to having to take a few lessons to help deal with such matters. After all, it had turned out that ignoring problems like this doesn't help in any way. Such tactics just make you a weak target, in reality.

Jules also paid special attention to a piece of artwork starring Robin Hood fighting alongside Sora. That got her attention thanks to her fondness of archery. Jules wasn't much a fan of traditional sports, preferring more "alternative" activities, but she found archery to be quite serene. Her friends once described it as one of her "happy places", that she would often retreat to. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends.

"Well, I guess it stands to reason that you'd have your eye caught by that one, Jules!" Naomi would later say over a bizarrely priced lunch, accompanied with milkshakes. Jules's phone had since shuffled and was now playing "_Blizzard_" by Light Club. "I've seen some of the stuff you do when your blood gets pumping, you can get really tricky, and not just with a bow!" Jules took yet another bite out of her deliciously awful burger, having already devoured most of both it and her side orders of onion rings, fries, salad, and chargrilled corn. Jules found herself once again marvelling at the bizarrely low price of the food in question, especially for the pricing standards of a convention.

Emily couldn't help but agree with Naomi's earlier statement. "It's like how we keep telling you, you're a bonafide badass!" As complimentary as she was being, something about her demeanour seemed fake. Her usual energy seemed more of a forgery, which was quite unlike her, even when she was tired.

"Girls! Please!" Jules couldn't help but blush and flush. Jules hated to admit it, but these two were her friends for a reason. Ever since they came over to help her when she was sitting alone on a bench worrying about some near-impossible schoolwork she couldn't understand, they had stayed at least in contact and had stuck by each other when the government-dictated curriculum had turned ugly on them, impeding them unfairly. The two of them had also been impressed by Jules's aforementioned fondness for archery. She didn't do regular archery like in the Olympics, she had a thing for shooting while moving, quick-drawing, trick-shooting, and other such things. She simply found it more invigorating.

She shied away from traditional sports thanks to numerous factors, such as the heavy focus on competition, and the fanaticism displayed by those who considered themselves fans of the sports in question. She preferred activities without such a stigma, such as archery, movement-based activities like running, jogging, even parkour and freerunning. She also took some self-defensive activities on as well to build up her strength, which came handy when she finally had enough of the bullies around her school. Jules, having finished her lunch, was snapped out of her partially musically induced reverie when she realized Emily seemed more "down" than usual. "Emily, is something the matter?"

She flinched, visibly startled. "What? No, nothing!"

Jules continued to stare Emily down. She continued looking at her phone, eventually bursting into shivers. Jules had turned the volume down on her music significantly to better hear her friend, but it was still there in the back.

"...O-Okay, it-it's these crowds! I mean, I've been to a few cons, Naomi, Jules, and this is just TOO rowdy! I mean, I swear people were taking their shirts off, and things got a little too close…"

Jules wasn't letting that slide, not by a long shot. "What do you mean, too close? Did anybody **dare** try and hurt you?! **Anybody at all!?**"

"JULES, _**STOP**_!" Naomi sliced in, leaning over the table, in a manner that was very much unlike her. "Look, we can head to security and get things sorted out-"

"No, Naomi, let me… Just… Jules, back there, when I headed to the toilets... We had to use the disabled because somebody has flooded the damn toilets!" Emily shook her hands in the air in a semi-wild manner. "I heard somebody loosened the bolts on the toilets so that when the next person flushed, water would flood everywhere!"

"Oh, _hell_."

"That's not all, guys! This stuff on social media, it… It's all going crazy!" She presented her phone to the other two girls.

According to the feeds, a large number of people were hotboxing the rooms at their respective Kingdom Come branches, there were streakers at some of the conventions, there were confirmed hauls of nitrous oxide canisters just lying around at some places, and there were also apparently some suspicious things going on with the ventilation systems of various buildings, according to this obscure post that Emily had dug up.

Dysfunctional, non-sober persons were causing chaos much in the same way football hooligans do, or sane, rational, sober, well-adjusted people don't (in theory, anyway). The posts contained reports of things such as mass violence, to even a swimming pool being utterly destroyed thanks to pumps being sabotaged to the point of exploding, and filters being contaminated with various kinds of substances, in various creative ways.

"Jules. Emily. At places like this, it's usually just a small minority trying to ruin it for everyone else, there's no need to panic!" Naomi quickly jumped in to calm the nerves of her two friends. "It's always either people taking offence to everyone enjoying themselves for whatever reason, or people who get their kicks causing chaos!" She continued, making numerous hand gestures in quick succession while leaning over the table somewhat. "Although, we could head over to security, and get things checked out…"

Naomi's idea was agreed upon by the other two, and Naomi took Emily to some security personnel, putting a caring hand on her shoulder to usher her along. Jules, meanwhile, headed to the bathroom herself, in order to freshen herself up. She too wasn't feeling herself. The convention really wasn't her kind of scene, so she just assumed it was getting to her. She let Emily and Naomi know where she was going and started to make her way.


	3. Bathroom-Related Difficulties

Jules found herself wandering from her now empty table to the bathroom somewhat slowly, trying to take note of all the things around her. Emily had previously referred Jules to people acting strangely, and now she was all alone. She decided to try and bear the silence with the smooth sounds of "Horse Steppin" by Sun Araw. It wasn't anywhere near one hundred percent successful, though.

Things were getting weird for her, too. People were standing in large crowds and chanting out something that sounded to Jules like "totally inane claptrap" prompting her to move on, running her hands through her hair every few minutes, as she stomped along, her mind in scrambles. She was feeling light headed. She thought back briefly to the supposed suspicious elements affecting the ventilation system, according to that text post she saw from Emily's phone.

_First things first. Head to the toilets. Take care of business. Then, I'll find security. I'll meet back up with my friends, and figure out what's going on. Then maybe,__** if need be**__, we blow this joint and get the ever-loving hell out of this crazy place. I'd rather make the most of it, we did spend quite a lot on this trip, but enough is enough._

Jules never really wanted to come along on the trip to Kingdom Come, but it was her only option for a while, thanks to external circumstances getting the better of her. Again. Things were getting hectic back home, to say the least.

At least she had company up until now, with Emily being the chipper, excitable one until things had started to get to her (which was worrying, considering how she was always the upbeat one) and Naomi being the much more mellow one, even when things around them had started to get straight up weird, and possibly more than a little unsafe.

Jules slipped past a model of the Twilight Town clock tower.

_Can I hear screaming? Is that what that is? And what's that other thing I'm hearing? Am I hearing it, or feeling it… It feels like a public address system..._

Jules tried to look around for any fights in the crowd, but the lights appeared to be dimming and darkening around her, so she couldn't really make out much. She found herself, for a brief moment, getting so worked up she wanted to smack somebody, but she quickly cooled her head.

_...Go to the bathroom. Take some care of yourself, Jules. _Her mind drifted briefly back to the ventilation again.

She passed by a semi-bizarre facsimile of the Destiny Islands, specifically the island that Sora, Riku, and Kairi had spent a presumably large amount of time on in their youth before innocence was made into a casualty when the world was destroyed and reduced to darkness. There was quite a large crowd at the facsimile, forming what could possibly be a party, mosh pit, or something similar, but Jules didn't stop to take a closer look. She was a little too stressed out for that.

_Jeez, I know this place was big, but this is getting insane… Was the venue always this huge? Maybe this weird musk in the air is getting to me… Is that just a thing that you get at conventions, or is that this thing I saw on social media about the ventilation?_

Eventually, after much wandering around trying to find a bathroom, Jules found her way into some sort of obscure backstage area of corridors, patterned wallpaper, and flooring across the hallway. Apparently, this area was intended mostly for convention personnel. Everything seemed bizarrely quiet. Jules's music player kept playing softly in her ears, her headphones firmly secured so they wouldn't fall or be otherwise dislodged from her head, like usual.

_Are these the only bathrooms? _She thought. _How come I have to end up back here to get to the bathrooms? Did I miss a bunch? This place has been quite hard to navigate, us three did kind of aimlessly wander and wonder… Jeez, my head… I've gotta freshen up. All this is getting to me._

Jules walked down the corridors, marvelling at how quiet they were compared to the bustling convention hall. _Not entirely peaceful, though. There seems to be a fair bit of commotion in the rooms of these hallways, but I can't pinpoint what it could be for the life of me!_

_Why did I find myself coming back here, anyhow, in search of a simple bathroom? No, wait… Did I get side-tracked when I focused on this humid, musky sensation? Oh, I totally did, didn't I? I'm really not used to being in convention halls, huh..._

Jules kept walking for a while and eventually came across a bathroom. Somewhat spacious, luckily, and with plenty of stalls. It was also bizarrely clean and hygienic, compared to what Jules was expecting by this point. Jules figured it could have been recently cleaned, but dismissed the idea. The general area didn't have any smells that hinted at the place being recently cleaned. There was a general vaguely humid smell, but Jules attributed that to the atmosphere of the convention as a whole, as she'd been able to smell it all around the convention hall.

That said, she noticed some cleaning supplies were in the corner, such as a mop with the paraphernalia that typically came with such a tool, and a yellow sign, meant to be placed outside of the door to indicate when cleaning was taking place. Jules shrugged her shoulders and went along to handle her business in the similarly clean bathroom stalls.

After Jules took care of her personal affairs, she found herself staring into the mirror, and making a feeble attempt at contemplation.

She stared back at her own face. Something seemed a little bit off. She couldn't tell if there was something actually on her face, or if she was just imagining it.

_Have there been any updates on the other Kingdom Come cons around the world? What about this one? I guess I'll check my…_

Jules froze. She refreshed her phone. No response. She refreshed her phone again. No response. She tried it again. No response.

_What… the hell... _

She opened up the settings menu. Her wi-fi signal had suddenly disappeared.

_Damn! Technical difficulties, too?!_

She opened up her 4G data signal. Or, at least, she attempted to. She tapped the icon on her screen again, and again, and again. It didn't work.

_Okay, WHAT!? I-Is it being jammed?! What's going on here, I've NEVER had my 4G crap out on me! WHAT'S GOING ON!?_

…_!_

…_!_

…_!_

_...Calm, Jules. Calm. Somebody else will have an idea of what to do, surely. _Conveniently enough, just then, an angelic-looking girl wearing some bright yellow hair and a pure white dress carrying a gym bag walked in, keeping her eyes pointed at the floor, behind their long blonde hair, and locking themselves in a cubicle, directly behind Jules.

_...Well, that's some decent cosplay. At least Namine wasn't dressed in anything too outlandish like the rest of the characters, making her easier to cosplay, even if she did seem to be somewhat under-dressed… _Jules thought to herself. _Emily and Naomi said a few times I'd make a good Xion look-alike, too. I can see it would only take a mere, itty, bitty, tiny bit of effort to accurately replicate her hair, but wouldn't I be too tall, though?_

Jules then went on to take some moments to suppress her rising social anxiety before addressing the girl. "Cosplaying as Namine, huh? Doing a good job of it, too!... Say, are you having any issues with the internet, yourself?"

"Huh?"

"The internet. It's not working, I can't get a data signal, and the wifi signal is down too. Nothing works, and I'm finding that really, _really_ odd..."

"Shouldn't you be out there, on the convention floor, enjoying yourself?"

"We'd heard from people posting pictures on the internet that there's a lot of chaos going down around Kingdom Come…"

The Namine cut her off. "Well, this always happens at conventions, doesn't it!?"

"Maybe, but to this extent? It's really weird, to say the least! Plus, there are apparently really suspicious things going on with the ventilation systems. I, for one, have been feeling kinda light-headed…"

The Namine didn't immediately respond, at first. "Truly? The ventilation? Is that so?"

"..."

Jules spoke up after a silence. "I'm gonna go ask somebody about it, security, methinks! Maybe I can ask the organizers directly if they happen to be around..."

"..."

Jules spoke again. "Do you think that's unreasonable? Is that it? Personally, I think it's _quite_ reasonable, especially considering it's put one of my friends on edge already!"

"..._I'm sorry that you feel that way_." Something about the cosplayer's tone didn't sound at all right.

Jules looked into the mirror to see "Namine" bursting out the stall she locked herself in and charging at her, her now having changed into long trousers and a jacket, both a flawless white and accompanied by gloves and boots. The utterly bizarre nature of the scenario hit her so hard she froze solid, staring unblinkingly into the mirror before her.

Without even touching her music player, she heard "Acid Spit" by Mega Drive start to blare.

"Namine's" punch connected with the back of her head, sending Jules's head smacking into the mirror with a horrible crack, the recoil bouncing her off the reflective surface and onto the hard flooring of the bathroom, dazing her, prompting Jules to let out a dazed moan.

Jules lay on the ground, rolling her head from side to side, groaning. Namine started to drag her dazed body across the floor, allowing Jules to vaguely notice the distinct orange/gold/amber tint to her eyes, as well as a vague cloud of what appeared to be thin smoke around her head.

Namine let her body-dragging motion flow into simply sliding Jules's body across the floor, positioning Jules's head in the way of the stall door and putting her foot down on Jules body. She then put one hand on the bizarrely heavy-duty stall door and got ready to slam it shut.

Jules couldn't do anything but try to breathe as she lay on the ground. Her breath seemed to rejuvenate her, and she got a burst of energy from what her lungs had taken in. With no time to contemplate the safety violations of having such a sturdy door, Jules tried to force her head out of the way of being crushed into a bloody mess, pushing forwards towards Namine, but she had no luck. Namine just kept pushing right back, with a strength that seemed unreal, coming from her slim, almost frail-looking figure.

As Namine pushed Jules's head back into position, after this brief struggle, Jules desperately kicked Namine in some part of her body that Jules didn't even notice, thanks to a rush of adrenaline, pushing Jules's head out of harm's way, leaving the door to instead slam into the side of her torso.

Jules quickly raised herself off the ground, pressing her palms onto the sides of the stall she was enclosed in, and forcing herself up. Namine charged again, prompting Jules to step onto the toilet seat and jump up, mounting the wall and swinging herself sideways, landing a kick into Namine's head while making the manoeuvre, which made an unsettling crunching sound. Namine was successfully knocked to the ground, leading Jules to stare down at her. Jules's entire body twitched madly.

"Now… What was that about… Huh?... Huh?" Jules's voice ran ragged and breathless, as she breathed as deeply as she could muster, given the situation. "Go on, you _freak_. Give me a reason." She kept breathing, trying to suppress the rage that was building in her heart, with every breath she took.

Jules kept shuddering, and Namine quickly got back up off the ground and reached into a pocket of her jacket, pulling out a pen and attempting to jam it into Jules's throat. Jules quickly reacted, blocking the pen with her hand, and pushing back against Namine's assault, which caused the pen to snap.

Jules was done playing around. She growled, and simply seized Namine by the waist, throwing her against the sink, leaving more than a dent in both it and her body. She grabbed her again, throwing her against the wall so hard she could almost feel some kind of shockwave or reverb spread out around the room from the wall the blonde impacted against, like vibrations from a bass-heavy loudspeaker.

Namine got up and ran to Jules's flank, attempting to get to her side to attack her, and actually landing a punch, staggering Jules and pinning her against a wall, quickly following that up by pinning both of Jules's arms behind her like an out-of-control police officer, and slamming Jules's body into the hard-surfaced wall of the bathroom.

Jules flung herself backwards, knocking both her and Namine to the ground, in order to free her arms. Both the girls quickly got themselves up, and Namine threw a punch that collided with Jules, forcibly turning her head to one side, with Jules herself retaliating with a punch that went entirely evaded by Namine.

Jules followed up her missed attack with a right hook into Namine's torso, following that up not a second later with a punch to the head. She then grabbed Namine and threw her to the ground, attempting to elbow-drop the rabid cosplayer. Namine rolled out of the way and brought out some kind of carpenter's claw-hammer, slamming it into the ground, just barely missing Jules, whose eyes now widened in absolute terror and fear, for she now realized what she'd gotten herself into.

The shock caused Jules to breathe harder and harder still.

Jules Masterson wanted nothing more than to end this. She finally decided it was time to use her secret weapon that she'd had taken past security. She'd been holding back so far as to maybe keep things under control, still hoping she could somehow pacify the situation, but now a wave of primal anger and rage rose up within her, rising up simultaneously with her rising off the floor. Her rage was unleashed shortly after she pulled out her struggle bat lookalike, the bold club ready for whatever heavy duty was about to be thrust upon it.

Jules and the club seemed to inherit two different flavours of rage from each other, and Jules stood with it gripped in her hand, glaring at her assailant.

"Huh? Oh… Hahahahaha! Wow, Xion, you're picking up Roxas's hobbies really well, aren't you?"

The cosplayer didn't believe it was real. The cosplayer thought it was fake. The cosplayer thought it was harmless. The cosplayer thought it was all a joke. The cosplayer thought it was worthy of ridicule. The cosplayer's hammer was swiftly knocked clean out of her hand, causing Namine's arm to jolt backwards and for the rest of her to inadvertently stumble, ever so slightly.

Jules took a sideways swing into Namine's head, sending her staggering around the room. Jules then followed it up by swinging horizontally into her entire body a few times over, eventually leaving her doubled over, and possibly tearing up, but Jules had no reason or ability to notice something, anything so small, such as that.

Jules raised the club, and brought it down on Namine, making her four limbs give way beneath her, sending her sprawling on the floor, and making a crunching sound to top it off. Jules swung again. And again. And again.

Jules flipped Namine over, and with a sound that sounded like an inhuman scream, She kept smashing the club into Namine's face, over, and over. She didn't hold back or let up in any sense. She kept smashing the club down as if she was on autopilot. She kept screaming. She kept smashing. Over and over again. She was simply left there, kneeling over the cosplayer's torso, raising the club over her head, which itself bore a twisted, grinning expression, betraying Jules's vague feelings that lay in-between serenity and catharsis.

Jules kept swinging and slamming, eventually slowing down and putting less and less strength into her brutal assaults each time. Her face gradually fell, her arms finally giving in to gravity and dropping to Jules's sides, the blunt bludgeon clattering to the ground. Acid Spit faded away from her music player, replaced (both disturbingly and appropriately) by "Crush" by El Huervo.

The cosplayer's face was left a bloodied, warped, twisted mess of its former self. Any special effects of natural beauty that Namine's visage had on the imitator couldn't help any longer. Jules forced herself to her feet, all music dying down, blood on her face, cheeks, and neck, as well as on her hands, as should be self-evident. Her clothes also wore their fair share of newfound red drops and droplets. Jules's face now fell entirely, and she was left staring dumbstruck at what she could only call her "handiwork".

_What… WHAT THE __**FUCK?!**__ WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK HAVE I FUCKING __**DONE?! **_The thoughts ran through Jules's head. She staggered away from the body and fell on her rear, leaning against the wall, her legs sprawled out in front of her.

_This is fucked! This is SO! FUCKING! __**FUCKED!**_

Jules slumped there, breathing to herself. In. Out. In. Out. She kept shaking, before collapsing where she stood, and quickly scrambling into a nearby stall to vomit violently.

She wouldn't come away from there for quite a few moments.

Jules lay there for a while, letting her body shiver and twitch violently as she lay with her legs sprawled out on the floor, her back against the wall of the stall, her head raised slightly and her eyes shut tight. Some kind of bodily fluid dripped and leaked from her mouth.

Then, something hit her, and she started to think, and at a really fast speed.

_Nobody's come in here, yet. How long has it been?! Has it even been a minute yet? I… __**I don't know!**_

Jules's mind started racing. _Why haven't I made a break for it?! Maybe… Maybe I kinda want someone to come in and discover the body? No, I… That wouldn't end well... Emily, Naomi… I can't…_

…

_...I've got to get rid of that body._

Her mind racing in a frenzied panic, Jules grabbed the yellow safety sign by the cleaning supplies, and quickly moved it to the outside of the stalls, moving it far out enough into the nearby hallway that nobody would think to come in.

Jules then took hold of the body of the cosplayer by the shoulders, and dragged it into one of the stalls, obscuring the body in one of the stalls, and using a trick she'd picked up from the internet one mundane day to lock the stall door from the outside. Before she left the body there, though, she noticed something on the body's arm: A watch that, while only a bit scratched from her ordeal at Jules's hands, notably had its hands spinning both clockwise and counter-clockwise at varying speeds. Jules instinctively pocketed the watch.

Jules then grabbed the cleaning supplies in the corner that she spied earlier and used them semi-haphazardly to clean the floor, swishing the mop across the floor violently and aggressively as if it were somehow responsible for Jules's friends meeting sticky ends. Eventually, she cleaned a large amount of the blood up and went to an undamaged mirror to examine the blood upon herself.

There wasn't that much blood to worry about, but there was enough to make Jules feel quite unsettled, as she simply stared into the reflective surface mounted to the wall. Jules's mind turned over itself, doing numerous loops, twists, and spins in her skull, as she tried to decipher what she was looking at, and whether it was either herself, her reflection, or something else unspecified.

She quickly washed as much as she could off, then continued to stare at the mirror, contemplating why on earth she'd done that. After that, Jules washed her hands feverishly, not even looking to see how bloody they actually were. They simply _felt_ bloody. They _felt_ stained.

_Something just came over me, I know it! How… How did… Wait. There have supposedly been fights on the convention floors, and __**she**__ asked me why I wasn't out there… Enjoying myself… Okay, something is seriously fucking wrong with this place. I must be close to the source of the problem, as well as security, considering this place is __**apparently**__ meant for personnel. I need to both figure out what's going on and find Naomi and Emily, and then we need to GET THE FUCK OUT of here before it's too late…!_

Jules forced herself away from the mirror and picked up her weapon. She put it into its compartment and took a drink of water from one of her two water bottles. She headed out into the hallway, finding a fountain to fill the bottles back up with drinking water. It wasn't long before a security guard came walking down the hallway, her mannerisms indicating that she had been greatly disturbed.

She pointed a pistol directly at Jules, prompting her to freeze and step back a little bit, tilting her head at the guard, her palms open and visible. Then, something blatantly obvious hit Jules like a freight train. The guard was sporting eyes with a golden colour, just like "Namine". Jules's mind raced to figure out how to deal with the situation, only for her mind to be stopped in its tracks when the guard then spoke to her, her voice clear, yet somehow quavering.

"You've felt it, haven't you…"

"Huh? Felt what?"

"That stuff! They're pumping it into the convention, through the vents, and anywhere else they can reach!"

Jules realized something right off the bat. "Wait, seriously? THAT'S why everyone's going mad?!"

"The organizers have some sort of hidden agenda, motive, or something! You're pretty resistant to this stuff, there's something about you!" The guard seemed a few steps between sanity and hysteria. "You've got to get down there and… And…"

"...Miss? Are you alright, ma'am?" At this point, even Jules was getting downright scared.

The guard started to stagger, and struggle to stay upright, pushing Jules away when she tried to help. "We… They took two girls down there, you were talking to them earlier… You're Jules Masterson, right?"

"_...WHAT?!_** What happened to them?!** Where are they?!"

"I'm sorry... I can't…"

The guard then ran into the bathroom, taking the gun with her. A few moments passed where Jules just stood there, in shock. Then, Jules heard the gun being fired. Jules took off down the corridor. She had to get to the bottom of this. Then, she would be able to get out of this melting pot of madness, plain and simple.

_Hang in there, guys! I'm on my way!_


	4. Malevolent Monsters, Benevolent Fluids

Jules powered through the hallways, a determined jolt in her heart, not letting her roughed up state that she got from battling the cosplayer stop her. She stormed along at a steady pace, pondering all that had happened. "Chamber of Reflections" by Sjellos played softly in the background in her headphones. Jules had picked this track out specifically to keep her at least somewhat on her toes, playing it on a low volume in order to hear her surroundings better.

Even in a scenario like this, Jules Masterson didn't want things to get too quiet. She never liked having things get too quiet. Many people accused her of sealing herself off from the world, but that wasn't entirely true. Jules simply didn't like things getting too quiet, and she liked having some musical accompaniment in all that she did, partly to feel somewhat less alone. She didn't think it was likely to distract her or stop her from focusing on what really mattered, after all.

Her friends occasionally took note of this, with light-hearted taunts coming in the form of playing certain kinds of music whenever she walked into the room on a music player, that music usually being from the Original Soundtrack to Bejeweled 2, by Peter "Skaven" Hajiba. Sometimes they decided to forgo this soundtrack in favour of more blatantly making fun of this trait of hers by playing a more lyrically-apropos song in the form of "Headphones on Your Heart" by LEENI, making a lyrical jab at her musical tendencies.

Not only did music often appropriately motivate her at times, but she never liked things being dead silent. It made it too easy for her to eavesdrop and end up getting involved in things that simply were not hers to get involved in. She also often found herself hearing people fight through walls when she didn't play music at all times, especially in environments she was brought up in.

The halls and corridors seemed to go on forever, the same pretentiously regal Valentine's Day themed wallpaper and carpeting giving way to utilitarian, practical-looking drywall. If there were any guards, Jules seemed to be avoiding them largely by accident.

Her mind turned to the cosplayer she had beaten up. _Why did I do that? Why didn't I just incapacitate her?! Something straight up __**got to me**__, I know it! Hell, it even felt like I was actually battling Namine, somehow, as if she lept off the screen and tried to kill me herself! I… I started to think and feel as if it was really her, rather than some cosplayer… I don't even..._

_Wait, that guard! _She remembered how the guard had given a rambling warning to her as she walked down the hallway, her feet striking the carpet with a determined spring. _Not to mention, that guard had Xehanort's eyes! Those eyes that indicate someone is either aligned with the Darkness or associated with it in some other way, possibly by… Hang on, the Darkness? As in, THE ACTUAL DARKNESS?!_

Once it hit Jules full-force, she couldn't shake the feeling that she's either been playing too much Kingdom Hearts, or the themed atmosphere of the convention was getting to her majorly. The darkness itself, from the Kingdom Hearts games, manifesting as an actual force causing havoc and mayhem?! Either the idea was absurdly unrealistic, or Jules simply hoped it was.

_Am I seriously assuming that the Darkness, the Kingdom Hearts interpretation of "Darkness", is actually out to get me and my friends?! Fucking hell, I'm really going mad!_

Jules took a moment to compose herself. The atmosphere was getting to her, no doubt about it. She thought for one moment that she was being watched, or followed. These feelings quickly dispersed, as if the feelings themselves intentionally made haste and swiftly departed upon being noticed.

_Christ, are conventions always this unbelievably immersive? _She thought back to all she had seen, from the convention hall to the unique marketing leading up to the event. People did seem to get swept up with the mood of the convention, the massive groups of spontaneous communal activities testified to that. However, they did seem like they were rather hostile affairs. The live-streams showing Kingdom Hearts fans in other countries did often lead to arguments, such as the one Jules overheard regarding Sora's level of "coolness" and other such things that seemed rather petty to Jules.

_I guess fans are all kinds of maniacs, eh? I mean, "fan" is short for "fanatic" so I guess that just figures… Hold on, the marketing…_

The marketing had been like a lighter version of an Alternate Reality Game, blurring the line between reality and fiction with some (presumably) forged images of the Heartless, fresh from the universe of Kingdom Hearts, hiding away in shadow-coated alleys and such, sometimes even overlooking famous buildings whenever possible. Funnily enough, nobody could find the metaphorical seams where the images were clearly doctored or faked. Some presumed puppetry, others assumed other methods, and Jules herself didn't give it much thought, assuming they must have been created _somehow_.

_Okay, I do recall THAT being weird, but if those images turned out to have actually had real Heartless, real darkness-infused monsters hiding just out of sight, I swear, I'll probably start screaming._

Jules mused on the thought for a while, deciding that such a thing would probably be her very last moment of sanity. Then again, perhaps it wasn't? Perhaps her actual last moment of sanity was in the bathroom, or maybe just afterwards when she'd spoken to the guard had been the final straw? Or maybe, just maybe, she was still somewhere in the realm of sanity, if only on the edge.

An encouraging thought, perhaps, but it also meant that when considering Jules's dire circumstances, her last sane moment alive, her last instance of lacking madness while still drawing breath, could possibly be around any of the corners she turned in this near-labyrinth of corridors. Was she even going the right way?

She stopped for just a moment to take in the surroundings. Jules had occasionally heard footsteps despite her music on the flooring and had occasionally taken a peek around corners to make sure nobody was around, but for the most part, she had instinctively marched on.

She knew that people tended to ignore what didn't seem suspicious, so she had, without thinking, just kept walking down most of the corridors like she didn't expect to be stopped on her less than merry way, hoping that anyone who saw her would assume she was running an errand, or something similar. After all, if similar tricks could be used to bypass White House security, (which was genuinely possible, it has been done before) they'd hopefully work here, even without a black T-shirt with "EVENT STAFF" printed on it.

The corridors themselves didn't seem to make logical sense. It wasn't clear to Jules whether she was simply exhausted, or in shock, but a lot of corridors seemed to go back on themselves and cut through each other in physically impossible ways, and Jules wondered if she was going in circles a few times. Despite all of this, she didn't dare stop in her tracks. She kept moving through the patterned walls of the complex, not stopping even as the patterns faded into blank drywall.

Suddenly, and with very little prior warning, Jules heard someone else approaching her.

_Oh, great. Another guard? I can probably just get past them by looking like I'm supposed to be here, right? Maybe I should roll my sleeves up, or even issue a command to them, or… No, that's too much. Maybe I could ask them a question?_

"Any sign of her?"

"Negative!" A different voice, presumably two guards, possibly out of a group.

_Wait, WHAT?! They're actually looking for ME?! Oh, no..._

"Gah! Right, we need to change our search pattern. We need to find her, and FAST. She already somehow got that weapon past security-"

"Don't you remember? They were told to be lax with their weapon policies by the guys who set this whole thing up, dummy!"

"**YOU. SHUT. UP**."

"And what about the rogue element who tipped the girl off?! How do you explain that?"

"I've no idea. Conscience?"

"Doesn't stop any of us."

"Must've been weak, eh?"

The people looking for her started to get closer and closer, prompting Jules to start to twitch her head around madly, moving away from the incoming threats. Thankfully, she quickly came across a storage closet and quickly slipped in as quietly as she could, hearing the security personnel approach closer and closer.

Jules stepped away from the door with her back against the wall harbouring the doorway and hoped for the best. _Gah! _She thought. _They're right there, I can't shut the door, else they'll notice!_

A moment passed.

Then another.

"I can't see anything around here. Let's press onward."

"Yes, let's. Remember, pals, this girl is armed and dangerous!"

"That, and a real oddity. I don't see how being away from the main convention meant she was able to snap out of it like that!" Jules was a little bit too relieved to notice anything about what the guards were saying, and how it both explained absolutely everything and absolutely nothing simultaneously.

"Yeah, she should have received the same amount of the stuff in the air as everyone else…" The voices trailed off as the guards left the scene, prompting Jules to breathe a sigh of relief, and quietly step forward away from the wall, observing the room she was hidden in.

* * *

The closet appeared to be a particularly enlarged storage closet, with boxes stacked on specially-made shelving from the floor to the ceiling, and a single light source that seemed to swing around, gently, in erratic patterns. This lead to numerous, constantly moving shadows being cast on the walls, including some that might have been alive.

_Oh, I'm really losing it… Wait, what was that?!_

Jules heard a noise ring out somewhere off in the distance, and she found herself shutting her music off completely. **Dead silence **replaced whatever ambient music her player had shifted to, aside from the creaking of the swinging light. Jules crept behind a stack of boxes and hid with her ears trained on whatever may be lurking in the shadows. She heard a sort of "shuffling" noise, distantly.

Jules kept herself tucked behind the boxes. She pondered briefly why she hid, as surely it would make her seem more suspicious to any staff or guards who happened to stumble across her, wouldn't it? She kept herself hidden, waiting for whatever monster lurked in the dark to pass her by. After about ten seconds or so, she found courage building up inside her, and curiosity getting the better of her, both contributing to her promptly peeking out from her hiding place and looking out from her cover, looking for something lurking in the shadows. It hadn't yet occurred to her that maybe it was the shadows themselves that were lurking.

It seemed like her sanity would soon dip lower, ever so slightly at the very least.

Out from her hiding place, Jules saw a creature shifting, striding, and scampering around, its form blending with the shadows of the room a little too well. It seemed to move around on oddly-pointed feet, bearing claws. It seemed to have an ever so slightly hunched stature, in addition to eyes like searchlights, yellow and wide.

_Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding…_

A Heartless. An actual Heartless. In Jules's reality. The implications of what she was seeing before her would be too complex for Jules to fathom if she knew what they were. For now, she simply sat staring. The creature seemed to be some form of bipedal Pureblood, prompting her to assume it to be a Shadow of some kind, but the creature was much bigger than she thought the Heartless would be.

_Why… How…_

Jules didn't dare so much as breathe. She didn't want it to notice her. After being roughed up by the cosplayer in addition to being strained through mental and emotional hell, she was in no condition to fight the apparition. The black creature was too much for her, she was certain. She put all her focus into keeping her breathing hushed and quiet, and her heartbeat under strict control, her undertaking of the task both aided and hindered in various different ways by the adrenaline bursting up through her body, stopping just short of the back of her throat. Jules attempted to analyze what exactly was visible to her.

For starters, the creature before her had a body consisting of the blackest black she'd ever seen, appearing to be constructed entirely from solidified black paint, except quite possibly even darker than even that. It somehow stood out against the darkness, with the ambient light from the swinging light source above them seemingly becoming trapped in its form, with the light being absorbed into the skin/flesh/outer layer/whatever it could possibly be to the point of seemingly no light at all being perceived as shining onto the creature itself. In essence, it resembled a three-dimensional silhouette, despite the somewhat commonly held belief that such a thing was impossible.

Jules would later come to the realization that the effect would be impossible to see through recreations, camera lenses, and other such things. No camera could truly capture its image as it really was, and even then, no website, server, storage device, or database could store the data that would make up the hypothetical image file, and no monitor could display the image's colours correctly. At this point in time, though, Jules was merely reminded vaguely of a material she'd seen across the internet named Vantablack, a substance, and material used to prevent stray light from entering telescopes and improve the performance of infrared cameras.

It was unknown if a regular film camera would be able to truly capture the visage since the almighty courts of public opinion had outlawed such gadgets as contraband, under the justification of them being tacky, outdated, and impractical.

The Heartless gazed around the room as if it had lost its way. Jules tucked back into her hiding spot, knocking against some boxes loud enough to make just a slight noise. The pitch-black apparition jolted and seemingly became alert.

Jules froze. Despite not being in top form, she slowly moved her hand to her Struggle Bat and clasped her hand around the handle, preparing for the absolute worst. The bizarre unreality of the situation seemed to fade from her conscious mind ever so slightly...

_Oh, hell, what am I DOING?! I don't have a Keyblade, so if this thing is real, I'm probably going to die here… _She thought to herself, forgetting how characters could actually defeat the Heartless with even bare fists in Tifa Lockhart's case in the original source material. She braced herself as the Heartless crept ever closer to her hiding spot, Jules trying to back away to give herself some distance between herself and it.

Then, a passing guard made a noise from outside, causing Jules's mind to wander to other topics and the Heartless standing outside her cover to look towards the door that Jules hadn't fully closed properly when she entered the storage closet. _Are those guards looking for me?! I'm honestly surprised I wasn't apprehended on the way here… At least, I don't think I was…_

"No sign of her. Damnit, that cosplayer should have killed her!"

"Yeah, jackass, we know! What the fuck were the guards thinking of letting her through with that bat?"

"It looked like one of those bats from the games, they probably thought it was harmless!

"Maybe they just thought it would be hilarious to see her get caught up with all the other attendees, so she'd be all rabid, smashing heads open and all? Gotta be honest, I'd want to see that!"

Jules couldn't believe what she was hearing. She noticed through the opening in the doorway that some of the guards had eye-obscuring glasses on. The others had gold-tinted eyes, causing Jules to take notice.

"Wait… Let's check this closet, the door isn't shut all the way!"

Jules froze in her hiding spot. _Oh, hell! This is it! I'm done for!_

One of the guards creaked the door open, attracting the attention of the Heartless. This would prove a bad move for the guards, as the Heartless let out a noise that Jules could hardly recognize from anywhere, and pounced the interloper.

"_Shit!_ One of them got out!"

"Back up! BACK UP! **BACK THE FU-**"

The guards' yelled-out commands to each other were quickly drowned out by screaming, yelling, and sounds of overall chaos erupted from behind the door. Jules crept quickly and quietly out of her hiding spot, and closed the door shut, pressing her back against it and slumping to the ground, the shock of seeing what appeared to be a Heartless for real standing right before her, combined with the overall stress of the situation, caused her to go emotionally dead, like a corporate wage-slave salaryman type of person who had just realized that this was all they were going to get out of life. This emotional state seemed to linger for a while.

Jules crossed her arms across her torso and grabbed at her shoulders, squeezing her eyes shut, and turning her head downwards. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. She realized that she was well and truly alone, and not for the first time as of recently. A few members of dedicated security personnel were being torn apart by a monster, helplessly shredded apart screaming, their thoughts impossible to fathom, and here Jules was just trying to get her head around everything that was happening to her. She longed for the more innocent times of last week.

_...I, I-I thought this convention would be a change of pace! I thought spending time with the few friends I have would be a nice break! If I ever get to return to a dull existence, meaningless in the grand scheme of things, it will be __**too soon! **__I… Oh, darn it all! __**I just want to go home!**_

Sounds of flesh being torn and ripped apart slipped through the closed door, as Jules pressed her back against it, staring up at the swinging light source in a melancholy manner. _Naomi? Emily? Is all this going to be worth it? Are you both okay?_

The noises kept on coming, as an indistinguishable amount of chaos broke out from the other side of the door, as the guards seemingly stood no chance against the monster from the shadows. Jules wondered what the monster was thinking, assuming it was thinking, and what it would do next.

It kept mauling the guards for a while, thrashing its claws around like someone going into a seizure, and slicing up security personnel like nothing else mattered to it. And, to be frank, that notion seemed to match the truth quite well. The monster searched for "hearts" and what might be souls, to consume, but it didn't seem to find what it was looking for, assuming there was any possible way to tell.

Jules crept away from the door and moved slowly towards the boxes, hoping to find something useful. She noted that she couldn't see any labels or identifying marks on each crate, and they were all identical looking, opaque, sealed crates. She wondered briefly what could be in them (hopefully something to help defeat the monster outside the door) and looked around the room for something to help get the crates open. It took her approximately five glances around the room before she spied a crowbar propped up against a wall, on a table. She might have noticed it earlier if it weren't for her current state of hysteria.

Jules swiped the crowbar and attempted to break open one of the crates. It took quite a bit of strength, but eventually, she was able to pry the box open. Inside the first crate, she found a bunch of nondescript books. She tried investigating a smaller, cardboard box on the floor next to it but found it to only contain weirdly shaped (long and thin, ending in a point with two points on the side of the centre point) sea-shells.

Jules pried open another crate. More texts, being supposed "reports" on something or other, which Jules was too hysterical to read and interpret properly. _Well, look at this! _She thought. _Knowing the "Reports" from the games... Check it out, girls! I found the gothic poetry after all! _Jules quickly dismissed the contents of the crate and went to open another one, briefly looking at the shells again in their box, noting how they each seemed to individually be one-fifth of a star shape.

Jules broke her way into another crate to find something _considerably_ more shocking. Glass bottles that had a somewhat stout design, unlike anything Jules had seen before, _or so she thought. _Jules gently grabbed at one of the bottles and lifted it out of the crate, examining it. She then promptly dropped it in shock once she saw the green glowing star in the middle of the bottle, floating in the murky, glittery liquid, and realized exactly what she was holding.

_A….A p-p-potion… Okay, first the Heartless… Now, this…_

The potion hit the ground, bouncing a few times and flipping over in the air, clattering to the ground, somehow without the bottle breaking or spilling. Jules looked at the bottle on the ground, and reached back down to pick it up, hands shaking.

It suddenly occurred to her that she'd been quite roughed up by the fight against the cosplayer, and hadn't had a chance to get first aid at all. Jules took the bottle and examined it. The blue-tinted liquid inside was murky, with what appeared to be glitter inside the bottle, not to mention the massive green glowing star. Jules took the bottle, opened it, and took a smell. It smelt like something sharp and medical.

Jules took a quick moment to come to the conclusion that she only lived once. That didn't exactly help in her decision to either drink the "potion" or simply dismiss it as poisonous. In the end, Jules decided she couldn't be any more doomed than she already was by this point, and drank some of the potion. It actually felt like it was restoring her, rejuvenating her spirit that she didn't even know she had, and repairing some bruising across her features. It also seemed to sharpen her senses that had been previously dulled.

The potion even tasted as sharp and medical as its aroma, starting off as cool and crisp and leaving a "burn" in the back of Jules's throat, as it warmed up somewhat inside her mouth. Jules tensed up uncontrollably, waiting for the large star to reach her lips, but it seemingly dissolved with the rest of the medical drink when drunk. Jules didn't pay attention to exactly what had happened, as she couldn't get a clear view while drinking the substance itself.

Jules stopped to take inventory. _So, healing potions now somehow exist__, _she thought, just barely fighting off a total mental breakdown and/or existential crisis as she took some more potions out of the storage to save for later just in case, _the Heartless are somehow in this world, this reality, and is currently tearing apart the guards on the other side of that door… Wait, I can't hear anything over there… Should I really take a peek outside…?_

Jules stared at the door, wondering if she should open it up or not. Eventually, she mustered up the courage to gently and quietly open the door a fraction and spied at the monster on the other side of the door. Unfortunately for her, this turned out to be a mistake as she saw the disintegrating bodies of some security guards, with the Heartless standing over the corpses, appearing to be confused. It then proceeded to notice Jules peeking out from the door, prompting it to slowly approach, seemingly out of a mix of curiosity and bewilderment. Jules quickly closed the door again and started to desperately try to think of a way out.

_Oh, HELL NO! This is it, I'm toast if I don't figure something out, and RIGHT NOW, for that matter!_

Jules quickly reached into the crate and pulled out another potion, such things like "addiction" not crossing her mind. She gulped it down quickly to kick her senses into high gear, and quickly looked around the room, scanning it top to bottom for something that could get her out of this mess. She checked the shelving, but couldn't find any other way out of the room. No windows, no secret doors hidden in the walls, nothing. She looked down in despair, and it was at that moment that she spied a trap-door hidden in the floor.

_...What? Seriously? I mean, do I really want to head down there…_

Jules heard the monster trying to scratch through, and break down, the doorway.

_Okay, CLEARLY not a lot of options!_

Jules held her breath, then grabbed the crowbar once again, pried the trap-door open, and threw herself down into the depths. She scrambled down the ladder, quickly scrambling back up briefly to slam the trap-door shut. She then dropped back down into the dark tunnel and looked around.

_Well… Now what?_


	5. The Facility Under Their Feet (Pt 1)

Jules Masterson was not having a good day before this, but this tunnel was making the problem worse and worse.

She powered on through it, noticing that it was smaller than the corridors by far, shorter and narrower, but just tall enough that Jules didn't have to bend down very far. Jules didn't know exactly how tall she is, but she knew she supposedly approached 6 feet in height.

The tunnel was very, very dark, though. Jules found herself putting her hand on the cold-to-the-touch walls and running her hand along the wall as she walked. Jules couldn't hear anything, so she decided to calm her nerves by getting her music player out again.

The light of the screen lit up the tunnel somewhat, but not that much. She felt her music player respond without her having to do much to it, automatically picking out "Around" by Modulogeek, and playing it on a low volume.

_What… The music player just switched tracks without me telling it to! _Jules thought. _Did it do that all by itself?! Wait, come to think of it, it did that when I was beating up Namine… I mean, that cosplayer… She wasn't even dressed exactly the same, and yet here I am, thinking of her as…_

Something caused Jules to pause.

_...Didn't she also call me "Xion"?_

Jules stopped in her tracks.

_Yeah! She did! I felt like she really was Namine, and she must have thought I was… Okay, WOAH! _Jules stopped walking down the tunnel to get her head around this. _I know I __**kind of**_ _look like her, but this is absurd! I can't really be a splitting image, I'm actually quite tall for starters! I'm not exactly six foot, but I'm near it! Okay, I've got similar hair, and I'm really pale, but REALLY?_

_...We both got carried away there, she went berserk on me, and she tried to… Hold on, she had an amber tint to her eyes, and I don't think they were contacts, so… Yeah. That thing from earlier was a Heartless, and this has something to do with the Darkness. I'm finding it hard to believe, but... I'm gonna force myself to. I'm gonna go with this, I'm gonna roll with it, and I'm sticking to my guns until a more reasonable explanation shows up. I don't care how much of a fool I look, there's __**no other way**_ _to handle this!_

_Now, the music player… Yup, I've got no clue why it's doing that. I'd better be careful with it as I go._

As if by magic, as Jules felt a spark of determination, she heard the song change from "Around" to "Repentant" by Danny Baranowsky.

_Oh, great. At least the volume isn't too loud, but what if someone overhears? _Jules took her headphones out, only to have the music keep playing gently in her ears regardless.

_...Okay, that's weird. Really weird. I need to keep an eye on that. No time to fret over it now, though. I've got friends to save and a damned mystery to uncover._

* * *

Jules's home life was quite bitter and unpleasant, to say the least.

She didn't live at her parents' house for a variety of reasons, her never believing in any kind of overwhelming supernatural force was already a bad start. She always felt like a large number of holy texts profoundly and proudly professing belief in an almighty God felt to her like manifestos for a supernatural form of a fascist regime and were, in large part, hazardous. Her parents had beat her badly for this mindset, accusing her of being a "twisted girl who they were ashamed of birthing, has been set in shadow, and who must be shown the light" which they decided to take literally, nearly blinding Jules in the process. The fact that she could recover from it was a miracle, ironically.

It didn't help that her parents tended to be the entitled sort, while also having the gall to mistreat their daughter in the ways that they did. They had even forced the neighbours to take action when Jules "fell" down the stairs, and had to drag herself to get help.

Eventually, after a few incidents where Jules stuck to her guns and refused to back down to parental pressure, continuing to use logic and reason against the tried-and-tested parental excuses of "because I say so" and whatnot, Jules was kicked out of the house while still in school, leaving Emily and Naomi to take her under their wings, with the immense approval of their families, due to reasons that are hopefully self-evident.

When Jules was found in school the next day in a state of emotional turmoil, crying, distraught, and having no idea what to do, not to mention having nowhere to go when school ended, the teachers ended up calling the authorities. Jules could have ended up in care, or worse, if it hadn't been for Emily and Naomi showing up in the nick of time and making a vital phone call to their own families, so Jules was able to escape what may or may not have been certain societal damnation.

In actuality, Jules had thought that her mistreatment at her own parents, the other students, and some of her teachers was simply normal. When she was offered what could be described as "overwhelming kindness" for the first time she could recall, the sheer juxtaposition seemingly overwhelmed her to the point of shattering whatever joyful spirit she could ever hope to retain and maintain over the long-term. In actuality, It still held firm over a few days, but when Jules got taken along on a family trip to Disneyland, that's when the dam broke, and Jules was never quite the same again.

Jules even sometimes found herself wondering how the world around her could be the way it was. She never got to any satisfying conclusion, always ending up at "reality just is" as she put it. This was the best that the therapists could hope for.

Jules never really "lightened up" as they put it. She had a sense of decency and she very much had standards, but she could act quite abrasive and aloof at times. Overall, her life wasn't the best. She was introduced to the world of Kingdom Hearts by Emily, apparently at Naomi's insistence. She'd found herself fascinated and intrigued by the universe depicted within. At the same time, she'd found it weirdly unnerving, with the over-glorification of Light over Darkness, that Jules found herself moderately disagreeing with.

Thanks to the demeanour of her parental figures, she had never liked excessive brightness in any form, whether it was the suns skin-scalding rays and blinding light, fire, numerous harmful chemical and crystal substances, the strong lamps used to extract confessions, or the flash and sudden heat of an atomic bomb.

She'd also, from somewhere not entirely known, picked up a "thing" for "adventurous" activities, such as climbing, zip-lining, and even combative things every now and then, such as a little bit of fencing. She never liked fighting against other people, though, and had a fondness for attacking inanimate targets, often with bows and arrows. This adventurous spirit was quite bizarre for those who had met her outside of these hobbies of hers, as she was considered by a few people to be a more "highly calculated" individual. It was possible that this love of adventure was simply a death wish.

Jules had even been considering heading off on her own to do some more of these, but something about Kingdom Come intrigued her enough to want to attend. Plus, she couldn't help but feel that the families of Emily and Naomi wanted her to accompany them. Maybe they got some bad vibes. Jules had come to respect them for how much they tried to raise their kids well, especially in comparison to her own parents, so that had been a contributing factor to Jules taking the trip along with the other two girls.

Then again, despite how sad Jules was thanks to her life thus far, she had quite a strong conscience. Maybe that didn't go far enough to explain why Jules had bothered to take the trip along with her two friends, but it did go far in explaining why Jules had silently stormed down to this weird, underground area.

* * *

After an amount of walking that was much shorter than Jules expected, she saw the opening of the tunnel before her, and slowly approached it. The somewhat quick pace of "Repentant" still audible to her did nothing to speed her approach, as she kept caution close without throwing it to the wind.

This turned out to be quite fortuitous, as she saw what appeared to be a Dark Corridor materialising before her, prompting her to drop to the ground, flat on her stomach, looking up at the corridor, but ready to drop her head back down should the need arise. She was hoping lying down would make her harder to see, as opposed to standing up.

Out of the Dark Corridor, someone wearing the Black Cloak of Organization XIII stepped out and met with someone wearing a clinical-looking coat. She noted that the Black Cloak looked disturbingly authentic She heard the cloaked one speak up first, being audible over the sounds of machinery Jules could hear from outside the tunnel. There was a slight hint of a country accent on the voice of the cloaked figure.

"No sign of the girl. She's slipped through our fingers again. The higher-ups won't be happy, that's for sure."

"Oh, God. Is there anything that might make her inclined to do things like this?"

"We did take her friends under our wings, didn't we?"

_They WHAT?! My friends, they... Oh, God! What have they done?!_

"How did she even get this far?! Is this just luck, does she have the training for something like this, or is this just natural cunning?"

"Honestly? We can't say for sure. It could be more than one of those, for all we know!"

"...We'd best keep an eye out. She could be anywhere."

The two figures that Jules couldn't recognize by their voice or their visage departed, prompting Jules to crawl and creep out of the tunnel and peek out after the two figures.

"Honestly, out of all the Kingdom Come locales, and all the branches of the entire Shadow Syndicate, how are _we_ the one having problems?!"

_Shadow Syndicate, huh? Well, that's probably got __**something**_ _to do with The Darkness... As unrealistic as it seems when I really think about it... What next, the Coalition of Cryogenically Frozen Cold War Communists?!_

"Well, I don't think that's actually true, I've heard some other divisions are having technical faults alongside us, and I've heard some vague rumours about other problematic interlopers…"

"Is there any way _she_ could get in here?"

"...There are the service tunnels that we used to use as shortcuts, you know, from before we figured out the other methods of getting around. I don't think we closed all of them off. Wasn't there one leading to a storage room we left open for the guys who hadn't figured out other ways of getting around?"

Jules realised that they were probably referring to her tunnel that she was hiding in. She started to creep out, only to realise there were few places for her to hide.

"...You might be right, there! I'll go check it, I think it's around here somewhere."

They kept talking for a few more seconds. Before the figure turned around, Jules had already quickly performed a light-footed dash to the end of the balcony that the tunnel exited to, and had jumped and managed to twist her body 180 degrees in the air, and just barely grab the railing of the balcony, ducking down to avoid being seen. The cloaked figure walked past, making Jules suppress a freaked squeal, and causing her grip on the railing to loosen, causing her slightly sweaty hands to slide down the vertical bars of said guard rails, leaving Jules to desperately grab and cling to the floor of the balcony that the guard rails were erected upon.

Normally, Jules wouldn't try something so obviously insane, but she did need to think fast, not to mention she _was_ having quite a bad day. Needless to say, she wasn't in tip-top shape, at least not mentally. While coming across a Heartless, something that was meant to be entirely fictional, in her reality, hadn't quite broken her into a crying, sobbing little girl just yet, it could have easily made her more reckless. Maybe she was growing a death wish. Maybe her pre-existing death wish was worsening. There was no way to say for sure. What was certain was that she couldn't just tell herself "reality just is" to settle her spirit, not this time.

It was at this point that Jules felt some sort of fumes beneath her. She looked down, only to see a (not oversized, but reasonably sized) vat of dark, murky chemicals unknown to her beneath where she was dangling. The item she pocketed from the cosplayer earlier fell into the vat, where the timepiece itself was quickly separated from the wrist strap, not by the sheer impact, but from forces enacted upon the timepiece by the chemicals alone. She hoisted her forearms and elbows up onto the concrete before she could lose her grip.

_Oh fuck, oh shit, oh no no no no no…_

The guard moved into the tunnel, prompting Jules to lift herself over the railing. She moved towards the guard within the tunnel, taking out her Struggle Bat. She wasn't holding it back. Not this time.

_Good thing I didn't drop this in that… **Stuff…**_

Jules let loose, slamming the bat over the head of the stranger, knocking him to the ground. Jules continued to whack the stranger over the head, which seemed to wake him back up again. Jules grabbed the figure underneath the shoulders and slammed him into the somewhat narrow walls with a vigorous, frenzied fury, and whacked him against said walls with the bat. The figure tried to struggle, but Jules wasn't taking any chances after the cosplayer in the bathroom. She delivered whack after whack, taking out her pent up rage and madness on the figure until she calmed down. She tried not to think about how it made her feel better by a not insignificant amount.

The figure took numerous blows from the walls to the shoulders and multiple blows to the head from Jules's direct strikes, rocking his head back and forth in a way that was very unlikely to be good for his neck. His head was pushed further and further to that of a cheaply made bobblehead that Jules would dismiss as fodder for foolish tourists at some seaside town shop. The tunnel didn't have that much of an echo, so the beatdown took place in relative quiet, with nothing but grunts and yelps audible to any passers-by, of which there were thankfully none.

_That's it, **punk…** Just sleep it off..._

The "struggle" seemed to take less than a minute for all Jules knew, which was quite an accurate measure of time on her part. The figure eventually stopped moving and was out cold, face down, clearly not having taken to wearing much in the name of protection under the cloak, considering how easily he went down. Trying not to think about anything, Jules got up off her knees and dragged the body further into the tunnel, where the shadows hid the body sufficiently. Jules got up to go when an idea struck her. She'd probably have a slightly easier time getting around this facility she had ended up in if she looked like she fit in, as that way she could essentially hide in plain sight...

_Well… I never intended to attend this convention while in any form of cosplay, but hey, fate clearly has other ideas, so what can you do…_

She had already been wearing darkly-coloured clothing, but this would be even more convincing, for obvious reasons. She bent back down and grabbed the cloak off the person's body. She quickly checked the pockets for anything of importance, such as tracking devices (_Saix tried that with Demyx in the manga,_ Jules recalled) and found some gadgets that she couldn't identify at first, and a box of matches, among other miscellaneous things, including a radio. The pockets were deeper than she expected, in fact.

The de-cloaked figure had quite a few slight dents in his head and seemed to be bleeding from the nose and mouth quite a bit more than what was considered healthy for an everyday human being. Jules flinched significantly at the maimed body, before shrugging out off out of a twisted necessity and checking the cloak over for bloodstains. Satisfied that the cloak had no stains of red on it (the body had fallen face-down, the only bloodstains were on the face and the ground) Jules put the cloak on and put the hood up, hoping nobody would see her face, like with the black cloaks from the original source material.

_Huh… Never thought wearing one of these would feel like this… _The fit wasn't perfect, even after Jules adjusted it a small amount, but it hopefully wouldn't have to be.

* * *

Jules walked over to the aforementioned balcony, now wearing her newfound attire, and gazed at the chemical vat.

_Why the fuck is this thing not covered?! And why the hell is there a walkway in close fucking proximity to it?!_

Jules mused on this to herself. The most likely solution that occurred to Jules was sheer incompetence, considering her life experiences. Her second guess was active malice, but this seemed to be more self-destructive malice unless they actively needed to throw people into these vats on a regular basis. At this point, Jules had no way of guessing that the vats were possibly uncovered due to them posing a safety hazard if covered up, thanks to the odd nature of the chemicals within.

Jules proceeded to walk in the opposite direction that the person in the lab coat had walked, keeping up a confident, calm stride, as if she didn't expect to be stopped.

The area she was in seemed to resemble a factory or facility of some kind, seemingly industrial in nature, with a rust-red tint across many walls. The vats filled with what Jules couldn't help but suspect to be filled with some kind of abomination of chemistry had numerous pipes connecting them to something that Jules couldn't see. She saw that some pipes were running along the walls, and something within her compelled her to follow them. Maybe her friends were down there.

Keeping her hood up and her head down, Jules walked along, trying to "walk the walk" as much as possible. Like when she was walking through the corridors earlier, she walked quickly, briskly, impatiently, and in a somewhat officious manner, carrying herself like someone in authority.

Jules had learned about this trick and it's surprising effectiveness early on in life and had used it to great effect when school was simply too much for her, with bullies, misunderstanding/malicious teachers, and whatnot, as it turned out that Jules could walk right out of the school gate without being stopped, as long as she kept walking like she was officially meant to be doing what she was doing. She'd assumed for the longest time that all the school staff had simply assumed she was running an errand of some description or something like that.

* * *

Jules noted that every now and then, she'd come across a person wearing a lab coat, or some other uniform, who seemed to give her a wide berth when she walked by, not wanting to look at her face. The cloak itself seemed to indicate that those wearing them had some authority that the other people present didn't want to challenge.

Her interest was piqued by some passing scientists who had mentioned things to her, such as a supposed border or shield around "the world" whatever that could specifically be referring to, numerous mentions of "darkness" and numerous concerns about a supposed area where the Heartless were kept locked up and experimented on.

_Wait, what?! _Jules had thought to herself at the time. _Okay, that's more than worrying… _(It should be reiterated that this is a person who takes some time to psyche herself up before attending a busy convention she didn't want anything to do with.)

Funnily enough, as she kept walking, Jules found herself stumbling across what appeared to be a very large box-like structure, with a window showing the inside of it. She looked upon it from afar, not wanting to disturb the lab coat-clad scientist, and the other person in some kind of uniform Jules didn't immediately recognize standing directly in front of the box.

"Honestly, I simply cannot believe this. Why are you even doing this underneath that rabble? Why did you organize them together?"

"Well, sir, we wanted to gather plenty of test subjects in a room, we wanted to pick out any potential troublemakers to use in experiments, and it only seemed appropriate to do it in this way, considering how we stumbled across-"

"I also am quite concerned with the international nature of this...event.

"What? Oh, don't worry, it's nothing worth worrying about, we simply have like-minded individuals in numerous locations across this entire world, mostly different places across America, and one big locale in Japan. You don't need to fret over it, sir."

"...You wanted to show me something?"

The scientist pushed a button. Then, something strange happened.

A small Shadow was dropped into the tank, and one of the scientists flicked a switch to turn on a gadget mounted to the side of the inside of the container. The gadget seemed to emit a very strange light, making a shimmering sound, that seemed to mesmerize the Shadow and encourage it to approach, crossing from one end of the tank to the other. The device itself gave off the impression of being a mix between a chemical flare and a lantern. The light it gave off seemed to be luminescent in nature and seemed to have a colour that Jules found hard to identify.

One of the scientists turned to her companion, looking quite proud of herself.

"So ya see, they can be controlled and manipulated to some extent, if not entirely, and we're making some really great strides in that area to control 'em more and more!"

"Are they all as small as this one, though?" Something was notable about the other person's voice. It gave off an air of officious experience. Jules didn't like the sound of it, something rubbed her the wrong way.

"Nah, there are some that are the size of an average person, some that are quite a bit bigger, and others that are just… Well, you'll see, hopefully!"

"Hm. Very interesting. As for these Night-Light Lures, as you call them, how soon could they be mass-produced?"

"Well, we were hoping that you and your associates could aid us in that department, General."

_...WHAT?! Did she really just call him... General?! Oh, dear GOD, they're talking with the __**military**__?!_

"I see. I'll need to speak to the President about all this. Do you have any ideas on cost for each Lure or anythin' like that?"

_Wait, even the Government is related to this?!_

Jules's music changed from "Repentant" to "Diptera Sonata" by Ridiculon. Jules didn't even consider it weird this time.

"Well, we've got some basic figures, but we aren't entirely certain about them…."

The general sighed. "Do you have anything else you want to show off?"

"Well, last time you were here we already showed off the bio-Oh, yes, we've made additional enhancements to our members-"

The General cut the female scientist off. "Oh, I've heard about this. You've been "augmenting" the human body, I hear?"

"Well, that's one way of putting it." She replied. Jules briefly wondered if they were talking about something dirty, or dirty in another sense.

"We've managed to make enhancements to allow people to make quick, evasive movements, dashing from one place to another at inhuman speed, and we've cracked biological night-vision along with using these "corridors" to quickly travel long distances! And, considering how magical and otherworldly this stuff is, we might even be able to have it destroy cancer cells with ruthless efficiency, with a little luck!"

"Fascinating!... Although, haven't you had some issues with this stuff mixing with people to turn them into… Other things?"

"...Yes, we've had instances of bodily mutation, General, as well as the brain not being affected in the same way every time." She had a nervous tone to her voice and mannerisms while speaking. "Some test subjects have suffered both mutation and symptoms relating to the brain that seem similar to the Rabies Virus, the Cordyceps Fungus, and other such things…"

"They're turning into monsters? Zombies, even?"

"Well, people 'round here have been calling them "Vampires" at times, but yes, I guess Zombies is appropriate. Some have turned to a feral state, others went into different kinds of insanity."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to do some animal testing, if you're gonna be like that?"

"Oh, we've done some of that, too! Some of the other branches have had very interesting results in that area, in fact!"

"I don't suppose you could show me some examples of all this…?"

"Oh? ...Of course! Follow me!"

The two people then walked off, leaving Jules dumbstruck, her having to take a few moments to comprehend all the implications of what she had just witnessed. _These guys are using actual Darkness, and the military is backing them up?! Jeez, talk about a fucking Black Site! What the hell has this world come to? Fuck, if this is what's going on in the world, and the other worlds are both out there, and entirely real, maybe I should figure out how to flag down a Gummi Ship or how to open a portal, and just get the fuck out of here… _Jules entertained the thought for a brief moment, but then dismissed it. _No, that would be even worse, with the Heartless teeming around, all the big bad villains lurking out there, and so many ways to die, or WORSE..._

_...Then again, maybe if things get bad enough… _Jules felt her mind wander again before she re-focused herself. **_ENOUGH OF THAT!_**_ Jeez… What HAVE I gotten myself into…_

Jules walked over to a nearby locker where they were visibly storing spare "Night-Light Lures" as they were apparently named, and grabbed a couple to put in her pockets. They had a size akin to a small lantern or a grenade, indicating that they were intended to be held like one, or thrown.

_...Whatever it is I've ended up in, I need to find my friends… And also maybe shut this whole thing down on the way out, if that's at all feasible. The operation looks pretty massive, though, and taking pictures with my phone would raise too much suspicion..._

* * *

(This chapter has been split to stop it from getting too long. It would have been around 7000 words, otherwise. Future chapters may be this long, if not longer. I apologize for any inconvenience caused.)


End file.
